


When Words Become Superfluous

by NomDeGuerre



Series: Parallels [4]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, Kisses, a tiny bit of angst, leliana's really not very helpful, the two dorks finally get their rears in gear, turns into complete fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-19
Updated: 2016-12-19
Packaged: 2018-09-09 16:58:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8900428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NomDeGuerre/pseuds/NomDeGuerre
Summary: Conclusion to my Parallels series."A kiss is a lovely trick designed by nature to stop speech when words become superfluous.”—Ingrid Bergman





	

“She wasn’t abused sexually,” says a voice abruptly behind Cullen, and he jumps and curses before the words even register.  When they do, he turns with a scowl.

“ _Leliana_.”  He makes his tone as disapproving as possible.  It, of course, has no effect on the Spymaster.  She saunters closer, ignoring the cobwebs that cling to her boots.  It seems this basement library is a secret even from the servants.

“I have investigated the incident at Ostwick Circle,” she says.  “While the Templar physically attacked her, he did not sexually abuse her.  He did desire her, but he didn’t want to, thought it was demonic influence.  She used to play lute, and sing.  She was very good, they said, a voice that could make a rock fall in love with her.  This Templar did, and hated her for it, so he maimed her hand so she couldn’t play, cut her throat so she couldn’t sing.  But he didn’t touch her in any other way.”

“Maker’s breath,” Cullen says, feeling sick and angry.  He’d already known, of course, he’d read the report of the incident in the Templars’ records after it had happened.  But hearing it still makes his stomach churn.  “Why are you telling me this?”

Leliana looks at him like he’s a particularly slow recruit.  Cullen feels himself flush, but maintains his steady glare.  Finally, the redhead sighs.  “Your regard for her is obvious, Commander.  As is hers for you.”

“Don’t you have better things to do than try to play matchmaker?” he asks sharply, though he knows the color in his cheeks is darkening.  Leliana props a hand on one hip and ignores his question.

“Don’t let your fear of upsetting her hold you back.  She might have once feared Templars, but she trusts you now.  If you make your feelings known, she will not flee you.”

“This is absurd,” he says.  “I’ve duties to return to.”

He walks toward Leliana, who is standing in the middle of the narrow, book-lined hallway that led to the door of the tiny library.  She doesn’t move as he advances, and eventually he’s the one who stops, standing only a few paces from the Spymaster.  She watches him with her too-sharp eyes.  One dark red brow rises eloquently.  “Of course.  Did I interrupt you on some errand here?”

He knows his hands are empty, that he’s retreating before he’s really finished investigating the shelves here, and that Leliana knows he’s just using his job as an excuse to escape an uncomfortable conversation.  “No.  I simply wondered at the contents of this room.  But I have lingered too long.”

Leliana gives him that small lie, probably only because she knows he’s aware of how much of a lie it is, and shifts out of the way to allow him to pass. He does so, stride quick and firm.  He pauses at the door, however, and says over his shoulder: “Has it occurred to you that perhaps I am holding back, not for her sake, but my own?”

He doesn’t wait for her response, but winds his way quickly up the hallways and staircases to Skyhold’s courtyard.  A squad of soldiers were beginning to assemble at the sparring ring, for their daily drills.  Cullen likes to lead the drills himself, but since the Inquisition has moved to Skyhold, its forces have grown to such numbers that it is prohibitively time-consuming to train them all.  He’s split the training schedule with his lieutenants, but still takes a shift for himself, one that rotates through the schedule so that he can work with each group of soldiers personally.  It gives him a better idea of the strengths and weaknesses of his men and women, makes them respect him as a fighter where otherwise they might only see him as a glorified clerk, and allows him to fit time for his own training into his hideously busy days.  He leads the soldiers through drills, demonstrates tactics, and spars with the most promising recruits.

He has found that he enjoys it; a great deal more than he enjoys the endless paperwork that dogs his steps as Commander.  He flatters himself to think that he is a skilled commander, with a firm grasp of strategy and tactics, but he has always done best leading from the front.  He had been able to do so originally, when the Inquisition was just a fledgling organization in Haven, but now he rarely leaves Skyhold.  It chafes, being shackled so to his desk.

Cullen takes in a deep breath of the mountain air, enjoying the crisp coldness.  At Kinloch, the air had been perfumed with the smell of lakewater, at least outside of the tower.  Within it had been the smell of parchment, beeswax, and elfroot.  And in Kirkwall, it had been brine and fear.

But here, the fresh air almost reminds him of home, in the winter when the snow fell.  He takes another deep breath, and strides across the courtyard to the sparring ring.  The soldiers snap to attention when they see him, Lieutenant Dinna Orwel saluting.  “Commander, ser.”

“At ease,” Cullen says.  Orwel had been a mercenary before the Conclave, joining the Inquisition after her employer perished in the cataclysm.  She is rough, but effective, and he often enjoys learning about her unconventional tactics, keen on broadening his own repertoire.  “It is drills to strengthen the off-hand, today, is it not, Lieutenant?”

“That it is, ser,” says Orwel with perhaps more cheer than necessary.  He’d noticed that she tends to take to the least popular exercises with a sort of gleeful ruthlessness.  The more likely the exercise is to make recruits groan and complain in the barracks later, the more Orwel grins while leading them through it.  She raises her voice to her soldiers.  “Alright, you lot, batons for now.  Pair off; strikes and blocks with your weak hand!”

They do so without fuss, making two lines facing off.  Holding their batons in their non-dominant hands, they began a pattern: a strike over-head, side, low.  Then they switch attacker and defender, and repeat.  The air fills with the rhythmic sounds of wood clacking against wood.

“Strike _harder_ , Farmer, come on!” Orwel bellows, folding her arms over her chest and standing like a hawk over them.  Cullen paces the line, critiquing stances and blows.

“Hold,” he tells one pair, and steps in to correct the grip of one of the newer recruits.  “Choke up a little on the baton, it’ll strengthen your grip.  Not too far, though.  There, try it again.”

The recruit strikes again, and this time the baton doesn’t wobble in his hand.  He nods, showing comprehension.  Cullen steps back.  “Good, continue.”

Orwel keeps on until the soldiers have sweated for a while, then she has them switch the ropes.    Staying in pairs, one soldier holds one end of two lengths of huge, heavy rope the thickness of a man’s wrist.  The other half of the pair takes up the other end of the ropes, one in each hand, and lifts and lowers them alternately, creating waves in the rope.  It requires strength and control from both soldiers, one to manipulate the ropes, and the other to ensure the ends don’t fly from his or her hands.  Again, after a time, they switch roles.

“Thatcher!  Don’t lock your knees unless you want to wake up in the dirt!” Cullen shouts.

“Commander.”  A messenger draws his attention, and hands him a board when he turns.  Cullen scans the missive affixed to it, a requisition from Leliana, asking leave for her to call up five of his soldiers to assist her agents in finding information about the Shrine of Dumat that had been mentioned in some intercepted Red Templar missives.  He glances over the names of the soldiers; they’re all ones he would have guessed, selected for their particular specialities.  They’re well-suited for the task.  Cullen signs the requisition and hands it back to the messenger, who carries it away.

He’s interrupted twice more over the course of the training session, and remains distracted by his conversation with Leliana, brief though it had been, and the apparent impending mission to Samson’s base of operations.  In the end, he feels even more weary and conflicted than he had when the session had started.  Rather the opposite of how he usually feels after training.

Sighing, he trudges up to his office.  With permanent strongholds in Crestwood and the Western Approach, dozens of smaller temporary camps scattered about Ferelden and Orlais, and mobile contingents of their forces even further afield, there is a great deal of paperwork involved in organizing the Inquisition’s soldiers.  What troops are where, what supplies each encampment needs, the presence or absence of safe supply routes, reports on Venatori or Red Templar activities, reports of Rifts or dragons… Those are only a few of the matters Cullen must address.  And as the Inquisition’s scope has broadened, they have only increased.

He sits down at his desk and shuffles through his papers.  He is only part way through writing up his weekly summary, which he’ll present at the next war table meeting in just two days, so he trims a quill and uncorks his inkwell, and falls into the deep tedium of paperwork.

* * *

The knock on the door is so soft, he nearly misses it, immersed as he is in his work.  He does catch it, however, and looks up, blinking his tired eyes back into focus.  “Come in!”

The door opens and the Inquisitor slips in, surprising Cullen.  He stands.  “Inquisitor.  Can I help you with something?”

She gives him a shy smile and moves closer.  She looks soft, wearing a soft shirt of ring velvet and trousers of cotton, her hair loose about her shoulders.  “I couldn’t sleep, and was standing on my balcony when I saw the light coming from your tower.”

Cullen glances around at the candles burning in his office, noting with surprise that they have burned down nearly to nubs.  He half turns to look out the window behind him.  It’s black as pitch on the other side of the glass.  “Maker’s breath, is it that late already?”

Evelyn laughs a little, a dry, rasping chuckle.  It is, perhaps, inappropriate how the sound sends a little jolt through his gut.  He shouldn’t _want_ her this much.  It seems... disrespectful, to think about her like that.  About how warm she’d be, under his touch.  How it would feel, smell, to press his face into her hair.  How he’d make her voice break and go soundless with pleasure.

She’s saying something, teasing him about essentially living at his desk: “—ought to be careful, or you’ll grow moss.”

He meets her gaze, briefly, nothing more than a glimpse of bright, mischievous eyes before he has to look away, face warming.  He shouldn’t think about her the way he does, and he _had_ been good about it, before Leliana had planted the thought in his head again.   _If you make your feelings known now, she will not flee you_.

He’s taken too long to respond; the tilt of her lips has smoothed and her brows have pinched together in concern.  “Cullen?  Are you alright?”

He clears his throat.  “Fine.  Merely… distracted.”

“Work?” she asks, turning her gaze down to the papers on the desk.  Cullen clears his throat again.

“A conversation between Sister Leliana and myself, actually,” he replies, truthful if misdirecting.  Her mouth puckers thoughtfully as she hums understanding.

“Anything I can help with?” she asks, all unknowing.

 _Blessed Andraste, have mercy on me_ , Cullen thinks, a little desperate.  His voice is slightly too forceful when he says: “No.”

She shifts back half a step, face going tight.  Cullen scrambles to fix what his damn fool mouth has damaged.  “I mean—!  I’m… Forgive me, Inquisitor.  Evelyn.  It’s just… a personal matter that I… wouldn’t want to burden you with.”

 _Please don’t press, please don’t press_ …

“Oh.  I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to pry,” she says, instantly contrite.  Instead of relieving Cullen, though, it only makes him feel more guilty.

“No, it’s just…” Cullen sighs.  “You’re the Inquisitor, and you already have much to consider.  I wouldn’t add to your troubles with something so… selfish.  You shouldn’t waste energy worrying about me or my problems.”

“You could let me worry about you a little,” she says softly, and Cullen’s heart gives a lurching thump.  She steps closer, touches the back of his glove-covered hand.  He drags his eyes up from the floor to look her in the face.  Her expression is inscrutable.

“It… seems too much to ask…” he says haltingly.  She’s standing so close he can almost imagine he can smell the clove-scented oil she uses on her armor, clinging to her from the hours she spends in it.  Her head is tipped back so she can look him in the face, her eyes roaming searchingly.  He wonders what she’s looking for, and the intent regard is enough to have his ears heating up with the force of his blush.  He glances away, and back.  “I—”

She rises up onto her toes, hands landing lightly on his shoulders for stability, and her mouth brushes lightly against his.

Cullen freezes, his breath arrested in his lungs, his mind wiped blank.  He goes very still, reigning in his very first reaction, which is to grab her and pull her against him and kiss back, harder.  He doesn’t want to scare her away, _can’t_ , and he _would_ with the strength of what he feels.  He holds himself back very carefully, not allowing himself to move, to breathe…

She pulls back, and he can see her nervousness now, as she scans his face for his reaction.  He thinks he should say something, do something, now, but his heart is pounding almost painfully in his chest and he can’t find the words.  Her expression crashes, and she turns and is at the door in a couple fleet steps before Cullen can even feel his confusion.

What is she— Why is she running?  Has he ruined this already?

_No!_

“Wait!” he croaks.  “No, wait!   _Evelyn!”_

He chases after her, as fast as he has ever moved in his life, faster.  Desperation lends wings to his feet, and he catches her by the arm halfway across the battlements.  He swings her around, briefly glimpsing the glitter of tears on her face before he’s ducking down and kissing her fiercely, the way he hadn’t allowed himself before.  He backs her against the crenellations, one hand at her waist steadying her, the other rising to brush against her jaw as he parts her lips with his and licks into her mouth.  After a moment of—surprise, uncertainty?—her hands land on his back, the right one twisting into his surcoat.

Their lips part, and come together again, then part once more as Evelyn lets out a small, shaky breath.  The puff of warm air against Cullen’s cheek pulls him back abruptly, and he draws away from her.  But he can’t quite persuade his hands to let her go, and she won’t let go either, so ends up standing so close to her he can see the individual stars reflected in her dazed eyes.  Her mouth is reddened from his attentions.

“Sorry,” he says quietly. “I…”

“That was nice,” she breathes.  “I’d like you to do that again, please.”

It’s Cullen’s turn to exhale shakily.  “Would you?” he asks inanely.

She nods.  “Please.”

He brushes the very tips of his fingers gently across the top of her cheekbone, wonderingly.  “You are so…”

He suddenly desperately wants to feel her skin-to-skin, and yanks off his glove to return his bare hand to her face, cupping her cheek.  His thumb brushes across her lips.  She parts them, tongue flicking out to touch his thumb, and then she catches the digit between her teeth and bites down gently.  Cullen feels his desire flare like a punch in his gut.

“ _Evelyn_ ,” he says, and his voice is all grit and rasp.  She shivers under his hands, and he remembers that they are standing on the battlements in the middle of the night and she is dressed only lightly.  “Are you cold?”

“No,” she denies, then amends: “Well, yes.  But that’s not the only reason I’m shivering.”

“Will you return to my office with me?” he asks before the implications of the question register.  As soon as the words leave his mouth he realizes it, however, and his face flames.

“Yes,” she breathes, and slips her hand around his bare one, still cradling her face.  Cullen can’t help but dip his head to kiss her again, hardly believing that she allows him to, that her fingers tighten around his and she presses close to him.  They remain in this embrace until Evelyn draws back, shivering a little.  “Alright, now I’m a little more than cold.  If we could?”

“I’m sorry,” Cullen says, appalled at himself.  “Of course.”

And he lets her step back from the crenellations, taking her hand to lead her back to his office.  The door stands open after his quick flight after her, spilling candlelight into the darkness.  Cullen urges her through first and follows, turning to close the door firmly behind him.  Turning to her, he finds her standing at the center of the room, hugging her arms around herself and smiling self-deprecatingly.  “I’m not exactly dressed for midnight assignations on the battlements.”

Though the wording makes his blush deepen— _Assignations! Maker!_ —it also makes his heart pound.  Like they are lovers, or she wishes them to be.  He fidgets a little, suddenly self-conscious and uncertain.  “Do you…?  Here, take my surcoat.  Would you like some wine, to warm yourself?”

He pulls at the fastenings of his coat, hands swift with familiarity.  In short order, he is draping the garment over her shoulders, fluffing the fur around her neck and ears.  Her fingers brush his as she reaches to draw it close about her.  Her smile warms.  “Thank you.  This is enough.”

He stands there stupidly for a moment, just staring at her standing in his office, wrapped in his surcoat, cheeks rouged from the cold and lips red and plumped from his kisses.   _Holy Maker and blessed Andraste, let me not be dreaming.  Let this not be some trick of the Fade._  Something in his expression must give him away, because she moves closer to him, letting go of the surcoat and reaching for one of his hands.  “Cullen?”

“I…” he swallows thickly, feeling unaccountably helpless.  “I never imagined that you…”

 _... could ever feel anything for me,_ he doesn’t finish, because what if he’s wrong?  What if he’s reading this situation completely wrong?  He falls silent, just gazing at her.  She wets her lips, then bites the lower one.  “I never thought I would, either.  You know I was afraid of you, to start.  I watched you, I didn’t trust you.  When I noticed that you were trying to treat me gently, to not make me uncomfortable, I thought that you were just trying to trick me into lowering my guard.  But I was watching you all the time, so I also saw you with your soldiers, and talking to the others in Haven.  And I realized that you were just kind, and you had no hidden reason for being so solicitous with me.  And then we started talking and I realized that you weren’t _just_ kind.  You… you’re a good man, Cullen.  And I care for you very much.”

“I wasn’t always kind,” he murmurs.  “I’m not as good as you think I am.  The man I was in the past…”

“I know.  But you chose not to be that man anymore.  You fight against that past every day.  That means something.”

“Evelyn.  May I kiss you?” It’s not what he intended to say, but it is a neat sum of what he is feeling at the moment.  She smiles, face shining.

“Yes.  Please.”  Even with her permission, he hesitates, until she gives his hand a little tug.  Then he steps into her, free hand lifting to cradle her head, tip it to receive his kiss.  Her lips are cool, and the rest of her as well.  He tries to gather her to him, to share his warmth.  He realizes immediately how ineffectual the gesture is with his armor a cold hard wall between them, and pulls back.  Evelyn has the same thought, because she lets go of his hand and pings a fingernail off his cuirass.  “Will you take this off?  It doesn’t make for a particularly comfortable hug.”

His hands automatically go to the buckles, then hesitate.  “Evelyn, I… You know that I have only the greatest regard for you—”

“I know,” she soothes.  “Cullen.  Please.”

He sheds his vambraces, and unbuckles his spaulders where they attach to his cuirass with hands that tremble just a little.  Evelyn doesn’t try to help, giving him control over the situation.  He sets aside the spaulders and starts on the cuirass itself.  Once he lays it carefully over the back of his desk’s chair, Evelyn steps forward, and slips her arms around his waist.

“Thank you,” she says softly, resting her head over his heart.  He puts his arms around her and lowers his chin so that his nose brushes against her hair.  “You know, I never imagined you could ever care for me, either.  After everything you’d suffered at the hands of mages.  After everything the Chantry taught you… I almost didn’t think this would be possible.”

“I don’t know when I started to love you, but I realized I did the moment you told me you were going to sacrifice yourself so I could get Haven evacuated,” he admits, then freezes when he realizes what he’s said.  She goes still, too, sucking in a muted gasp.

“You love me?” she breathes.  He winces.

“I’m sorry, that was—”

“Do you?” She looks up at him, forces him to meet her gaze.  He finds his mouth dry when he tries to answer, and has to clear his throat.

“Yes, I do.”

Her eyes go wide.  “Oh.”

And then she smiles, brilliantly, widely.  She exhales a small, disbelieving laugh, tears springing to the corners of her eyes.  “Oh.”

He’s struck dumb by the bright, burning _joy_ that is obvious in her features.  She lifts her hands to cup his face, but hesitates when the light of the Anchor gilds his jawline green.  She freezes before her hands touch him, face falling, and then snatches her hands away.  Or tries to, because Cullen catches them before she can withdraw too far.  Holding her now-uncertain gaze, he brings her right hand to his mouth.  

“I love you, Evelyn.  Magic and all.”  He kisses the knuckles of her hand like a courtier, then lifts her maimed and Marked left hand.  

“Scars and all.”  He kisses her knuckles, feeling the smooth and rough ridges of her scars against his lips as he lingers.  He turns the hand over.

“Anchor and all,” he finishes in a whisper, and kisses her Marked palm.  She gasps, and he can feel a tremor run through her body.  “I love all of you, Evelyn Trevelyan.”

Any hint of worry or hesitance is gone from both of them now, leaving only heat.  She reaches up again, not stopping this time, and cups his face in both hands.  She draws him down to press their foreheads together.  “Cullen Stanton Rutherford, I love you.”

He surges forward to kiss her, staggering them both two steps backward until they run into his desk, and then he bears her down to the surface without losing contact with her trembling lips.

“I love you, I love you, _I love you_ ,” she repeats over and over between kisses, the words never losing their sweetness, until speech is lost to her.  But there are other ways of communicating than the verbal, and they find that their hearts understand each other perfectly.

When at last they lie wrapped around each other in Cullen’s bed, sated and drowsy, Cullen presses his mouth to the back of her neck and finds himself facing sleep for the first time without dread, feeling able to face anything with her beside him.  His lips trace words of love against her skin, and she sighs contentedly in the circle of his arms.

Just before he slips, dreaming, into the Fade, he has the vague, disquieting thought that he'll have to admit to Leliana that she was right.

**Author's Note:**

> The end! I think this is a fine place to stop this little series of shorts. We all know the lovely happy ending that awaits them - Evelyn might lose an arm, but she gains a husband and a stepson... I mean Mabari.


End file.
